Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Kurdish anthropologist Aras (Mardin Artuklu Univ., Turkey) provides a valuable complement to Anna Grabolle- eliker's ethnography Kurdish Life in Contemporary Turkey (CH, Dec'l3, 51-2164), and a significant addition to anthropological studies of violence and the emotions of fear, pain, and suffering. Summing Up: Highly recommended."
B. Tavakolian, Emeritus, Denison University in CHOICE
"Ramazan Aras has provided an important account of the attempt by Turkey to create a modern state out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He documents in remarkable detail the political violence this has involved against the Kurds and the discourse of "security" by which their physical and psychological suffering, and the consequent breakup of their communities, has been legitimized by state authorities. Anyone wanting to understand the conflicts and repressions accompanying the formation of the modern secular state in the Middle East will find this book indispensible."
Talal Asad, Distinguished Prof. Emeritus, CUNY
"The strength of this book is that it gives a voice to those who were not active participants in the Kurdish movement and may even have grave reservations about its ideology and rejection of traditional values yet are profoundly influenced by it. The author is at pains to show that these people too are not passive victims of the dominant political forces but active political subjects, with agency in the making of Kurdishness."
Martin van Bruinessen, Emeritus Prof., Utrecht University
Table of ContentsIntroduction: An Ethnography of Political Violence Among Kurds 1 The Modern Nation-State and Political Violence 2 A Genealogical Exploration of Kurdish Suffering in Turkey 3 The State and the Politics of Fear 4 A Nation in Pain: Gendered Suffering and Loss 5 The Embodiment of State Violence: Memories of Incarceration and Corporeal Punishment Conclusion: the Making of Kurdish World(s)
